Even though Corky Morrison is homeless, he doesn’t have any reason to leave the Harbor.
He says he likes the opportunities its landscape gives to outdoorsmen, and he appreciates its history.
Morrison, a 59-year-old Seattle native, moved to Aberdeen in 1983 and worked as an asphalt equipment operator for two decades.
Then, in 2008, a back injury put him out of work. His income ran dry, and three years later he was on the street.
Morrison, an Army veteran who says he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, now lives out of his car, a red Ford Explorer that he parks on the north side of the Chehalis River on a piece of private property among railroad tracks and industrial buildings. He said he’s lived there for nearly two years.
“If you’re not buying a house, you’re homeless,” Morrison said against the backdrop of commuters driving over the Chehalis River Bridge. He’s lived the philosophy for several years now, adding that anyone who rents a home on the Harbor is one paycheck away from being in a tent by the river, just like him.
He’s not the only one. The site — not far from the now-vacant Stouffer Lumber yard — was home to at least a dozen camps on Monday, when temps were in the 40s and rain made the banks soft and muddy. Morrison said the area is home to nearly 20 camps in the winter and nearly 50 in the summer.
He was among the group of homeless in the area surprised to find eviction notices on their tents on March 11. The city’s signs demand the squatters leave by March 31, leaving them and their supporters up in arms about where they should go.
Homes along the river
A longtime resident of the riverside collection of camps, Morrison knows many of the people who call it home. The people who move there, he said, have found themselves in “the circuit,” a vicious cycle that sees people going from rundown apartments to cheap motels, then a tent on the Chehalis as a last resort.
Most people are welcome in the area as long as they don’t bring trouble with them, Morrison said as he walked along the bank, pointing out various camps along the way.
Rick Marcoe, 57, lives inside one of the many blue-tarp tents along the river. Marcoe’s home is one of the most visible from the road that runs alongside the river, thanks to an elaborate archway he’s pieced together from wood that marks the edge of the claim he’s staked.
Morrison called out Marcoe’s name from the road, and Marcoe stepped into the rain.
Marcoe has lived on the river for two years, he said. The Tacoma native moved to Aberdeen about 20 years ago and worked primarily in property management. The city’s eviction notice, he said, was the city’s way of showing a lack of support for its homeless population.
Marcoe said he just wants to be left alone.
“We just need a place where we don’t get kicked when we go to sleep,” he said.
A few feet downriver, John, a 39-year-old camper who withheld his last name, lived in a two-room tent near the bank. A blue tarp helped keep out much of Monday’s downpour. John said he moved to Aberdeen in 2012, from Tucson, Ariz. John’s extensive criminal record, he added, has prevented him from finding a job. A carpenter and mechanic, he said he’s worked odd jobs when he can find them. He lived in abandoned houses until he moved to the river in June 2014.
John said the city hasn’t done anything to help the homeless following the eviction notices.
“We’re just like cockroaches under their feet,” he said. “They won’t even give you the time of day.”
Morrison said that campers don’t fit the alcoholic stereotype that falls on many homeless. Marcoe said he hasn’t drank in about 12 years.
Morrison added he goes to places like the Union Gospel Mission on Heron Street to eat and shower. But the crowded conditions prevent him from living there with his PTSD. With tents along the river the last resort for most campers, he said the city needs to provide an alternative if it plans to post evictions.
The evictions
Eviction notices were posted on March 11 to tents along the river and spread across two properties, said Bill Sidor, the city’s code enforcement officer. The notices deem the tents unsafe to occupy and threaten misdemeanors against those still inside after 4 p.m. on March 31.
A notice, Sidor said, went to the property owners in December about the trash on the land, which is a health hazard.
The property owners, Sidor said, included Earl Whiting, a local businessman in the wood products industry, and Michael Lang. “Something needed to be done,” he said. “So that’s when I started sending those notices out ahead of time instead of waiting another month for spring to get the area cleaned up and get them moved out of there.”
Sidor said the city planned to wait until spring to start the evictions, but, after receiving complaints about thefts and assaults allegedly committed by some of the homeless in the area, he sent them out earlier. The city, he added, can post eviction notices on private property if the property poses health risks.
Sidor added that the evictions do not coincide with the city’s plans to build a riverfront park. The city is currently administering an environmental assessment on the Whiting property with the intent of making it a park.
Sidor said an initiative by the county’s Public Health Department has proposed the city devise a 10-year plan to address homelessness in Aberdeen. That plan, he added, has yet to be discussed in depth.
Following a meeting on downtown revitalization last week, Mayor Bill Simpson said he didn’t know of any plans by the city to provide any living alternatives for evicted homeless along the river. He added that providing assistance to the homeless does not fall under the city’s purview.
“I would think that’s more the responsibility of different organizations like the Union Gospel Mission,” he said. “The city is here to run the water, the sewer, the garbage, the finances to run the city. We’d love to have enough money to build a place for homeless to live.”
Championing the cause
Among the strongest of advocates standing with Aberdeen’s homeless is Sarah Monroe, a priest with Chaplains on the Harbor, a ministry that operates between Aberdeen and Westport. Monroe, who works in partnership with St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, visits the camps along the river at least once a week, and was there Monday morning.
A Harbor native, Monroe began working with homeless people in the area a year and a half ago, and has since called it “the best thing I’ve ever done.”
Monroe said she thinks the focus on tourism has left city leaders across the nation ignoring issues of homelessness and turning to improving the city’s storefronts and attractions.
“Cleaning up towns has become a priority, I think, for a lot of cities and towns around the country,” she said, adding that she saw it happen in Seattle. “I think we have the same push in Aberdeen. I think there’s a tendency more and more for cities to adopt policies to push people out of the way instead of actually address the common good.”
Monroe agrees with campers who said they would like to see more housing options.
“If the city is going to evict, there needs to be an alternative place for people to go,” she said last week. “Is there public land for people to go? I think that’s a temporary solution. The city needs to take our housing crisis seriously.”
Evictions pending
As the 31st draws near, Monroe said she hopes to get campers to voice their opinions at Wednesday’s City Council meeting. It’s been difficult in the past to get a large turnout from the homeless population, she said. Still, John said he plans to attend the meeting to fight for the place he’s called home for nearly a year. Morrison hopes to make it, too.
“I’m not looking for a handout,” he said. “I’m looking for a place to live.”
Kyle Mittan, 360-537-3932, kmittan@thedailyworld.com. Twitter: @KyleMittan
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